Synopses & Reviews
Haifa Zangana, a former political prisoner of the Ba'ath regime, presents the first comprehensive history of women in modern Iraq through the US occupation. Positioning Iraqi women today in a long line of daring and vocal activists resisting foreign aggression and despotism, Zangana traces this lineage from the emergence of a handful of turn-of-the-century poets to women's mass membership in politically affiliated women's leagues, and finally confronts the paradox of women's rising status under decades of repressive Ba'ath rule, when they were the most educated in the Arab world.
Zangana contradicts the passive role into which Western media have cast Iraqi women and presents a forceful critique of foreign women's organizations' attempts to hijack the initiatives of Iraqi women. Addressing the stark realities of Iraq today, Zangana reveals Baghdad as a "city of widows," where more than 300,000 women have been left to head households. Just as the sanctions disproportionately affected women and children, the war and occupation have destroyed their way of life. In the rebuilding of Iraq, as so often before, Zangana suggests, Iraqi women will be left to pick up the pieces of their country after yet another senseless imperial adventure.
Review
"Zangana, who is now based in London, and whose analysis regularly appears in numerous publications in the UK, was imprisoned and tortured at Abu Ghraib for her political activities during Saddam Hussein's reign. In this slim volume, she covers the rise of the modern Iraqi state, life under Hussein, the years of sanctions and occupation, and the status of women throughout. The fact that Zangana can offer so much enlightenment in so few pages is less a testament to her wisdom or writing than to the gaping void that is what most Americans know about Iraq -- even now, almost five years after invading it." Susan Chenelle, Bitch Magazine (read the entire Bitch Magazine review)
Synopsis
Zangana, a former political prisoner of the Ba'ath regime, presents the first comprehensive history of women in modern Iraq through the U.S. occupation. She contradicts the passive role shown by Western media and presents a forceful critique of attempts to hijack the initiatives of Iraqi women.
Synopsis
In City of Widows, Haifa Zangana tells the story of her country, from the early twentieth century through the US-UK invasion and the current occupation. She brings to light a sense of Iraq as a society mainly of secularists who have been denied, through years of sanctions, war, and occupation, a system
within which to build the country according to their own values. She points to the long history of political activism and social participation of Iraqi women, and the fact that, before the recent invasion, they had been among the most liberated of their gender in the Middle East. Finally, she writes about
Baghdad today as a city populated by bereaved women and children who have lost their loved ones and their land, but who are still emboldened by the native right to resist and liberate themselves to create an independent Iraq.
Synopsis
The story of Iraqi women before and after Washington's "liberation."
About the Author
Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi political commentator, novelist, and former prisoner of Saddam Hussein's regime. She is a weekly columnist for al-Quds newspaper and a commentator for the Guardian, Red Pepper, and al-Ahram Weekly. She lives in London.